Medio-legal issues apply to each and every patient interaction that we have as registered nurses and healthcare professionals. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Code of Conduct (2018) is concise on how we should keep up to date, document carefully, and work within our scope of practice — just to name a few pointers. Here, Kirsty Armstrong, advanced nurse practitioner in out-of-hours and urgent care, provides a crossword containing some further items that nurses need to consider when working with patients, with explanation provided with the answers. The list does not encompass everything that nurses need to be mindful of, but hopefully is a starting point for further reading, for which a list of resources is provided at the end of the article. This crossword has a focus on immunisation practice.
This article provides general practice nurses (GPNs) with a brief history of asset-based community development (ABCD). It considers how the principles of asset-based approaches are currently used and may be further developed to tackle modern challenges in health and social care. It considers one particular approach, ‘social prescribing’ — this is perhaps best known to GPNs. Social prescribing has emerged as an early asset-based solution to improve wellbeing. The article also explores some of the advantages and limitations of social prescribing and gives glimpses as to how asset-based nursing may evolve.
There is a variability and inconsistency in how GPs carry out cancer care reviews (Meiklejohn et al, 2016). Many people report feeling abandoned after treatment finishes (Scottish Cancer Experience Survey 2015/16). This article looks at an evaluation undertaken by NHS Lanarkshire as part of the Macmillan Transforming Care after Treatment (TCAT) programme to ascertain the acceptability and feasibility of general practice nurses (GPNs) taking on the role of delivering cancer care reviews using a Macmillan Holistic Needs Assessment Tool. After Macmillan cancer training, 10 GPNs invited people with a new diagnosis to a cancer care review. A concerns checklist was sent to the patients before the review. Four hundred people were invited, with 250 accepting the offer. People reported that the time afforded by the GPN was valued and they saw them as a point of contact in the future. Fatigue, pain and worry were the top three concerns raised. It was concluded that, with training, GPNs can offer quality-assured cancer care reviews and therefore shift some of the workload from GPs.
A project in Leeds is improving health outcomes for Gypsies and Travellers. Here, Liz Keat, outreach nurse, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust and Queen’s Nurse, and Ellie Rogers, deputy CEO, Leeds GATE, discuss what they have learnt about primary care nursing and Gypsy/Traveller communities.
In each issue of the Journal of General Practice Nursing, we investigate a topic currently affecting our readers. Here, Gill Beardmore, primary care workforce transformation manager, Health Education England, East Midlands Office and Queen's Nurse, looks at what's being done to develop the next generation of GPNs.
A list of current job vacancies, as advertised by Hallam Medical.
Evidence suggests that people are most likely to quit if they use a combination of pharmacological interventions along with behavioural change strategies.
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